Comey Defends US Surveillance Program

Plenty of oversight! Plenty!

President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the FBI forcefully argued to the Senate that the oversight mechanisms on the government's widespread surveillance of phone records and online habits sufficiently protect Americans' privacy.

James Comey, the former US deputy attorney general, said Tuesday that the secret surveillance court that approves wiretapping requests is "anything but a rubber stamp", even though the so-called Fisa court approves nearly every surveillance request by the government.

"I think folks don't understand that the FBI operates under a wide variety of constraints," Comey testified during his confirmation hearing to succeed Robert Mueller as the second director of the bureau since 9/11. The combination of the Fisa court, investigative guidelines from the US attorney general, congressional scrutiny and internal inspectors general are "very effective" at checking FBI abuse, Comey argued.

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